Monday, November 3, 2008

So said my husband, as he scribbled his signature, over and over again as it appears on his driver's license, on scratch paper.

Our paranoia about this election being stolen and our votes being thrown out is palpable. We were especially wigged after husband's name was purged from the voter rolls, less than a month after he had voted in the primaries. This story just reinforced the fear.

You see, in Washington State, some Republican dumb ass got the great idea that if your signature on your absentee ballot does not exactly match the signature on your driver's license then they will pull your ballot, investigate and probably throw it out.

So, after my husband took great pains to make certain that he used the right pen and filled out every bubble perfectly, he attempted to make his signature look exactly like it does on his driver's license.

Voting should not be this difficult. The Republicans have always wanted to decrease the votes counted. Thom Hartmann always plays the clip from one of the founders of the neo-cons, speaking in a church, saying "all you Christians out there suffering from goo-goo syndrome, the "good government syndrome" need to understand that elections have never been won by a majority of voters....we don't want people to vote." (Or something to that effect, I was too lazy to look it up.)

My favorite State Rep says that elections are more about people who don't vote than people who do. This is true. If everyone who cannot get time off work to go vote, or everyone who suffers from the policies of bad government went to the polls, we would have Democratic landslides - always.

This study proves that Democratic Presidents raise the incomes of average Americans whereas Republican Presidents raise the incomes of the wealthy. Republicans do not want the people to figure this out, they do not want the people to be educated, they do not want the people to vote.

Although this article and its accompanying chart helped ease my paranoia, it did not change the fact that husband had to practice signing his own fucking name for fear that his vote would be thrown out. It should not be this way and I hope that the first thing that the Progressive Blogosphere pushes through the Congress is a new law to protect our vote, return to paper ballots and take away the involvement of private corporations in our franchise.